Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India)
This article presents case studies of two apartment projects built in the Western Indian city of Pune (formerly Poona) in the 1970s and 1980s. While their architecture is unassuming, the histories of their realisation provide a powerful account of how transformations in building policy shaped notion...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
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Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art
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| Series: | ABE Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/abe/13394 |
| _version_ | 1797305662928060416 |
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| author | Sarah Melsens Inge Bertels Amit Srivastava |
| author_facet | Sarah Melsens Inge Bertels Amit Srivastava |
| author_sort | Sarah Melsens |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article presents case studies of two apartment projects built in the Western Indian city of Pune (formerly Poona) in the 1970s and 1980s. While their architecture is unassuming, the histories of their realisation provide a powerful account of how transformations in building policy shaped notions of professional architectural practice in India at the time. In particular, the cases illustrate how rank-and-file architects found themselves caught in the tension between, on the one hand, a socialist state eager to apply welfare measures but unable to execute them autonomously and, on the other hand, private-sector entrepreneurship looking for opportunities to satisfy increasing demands for home ownership. The article begins with an exploration of how this tension resulted in an intensification of the building bureaucracy. The second part investigates how modes of this bureaucracy, in turn, affected architectural patronage, the daily tasks expected of architects, and built architecture itself. Going beyond traditional architectural references, the study draws upon building regulation, oral history, and bureaucratic correspondence retrieved from the previously undisclosed archives of the architects. The narrative revealed by these sources challenges dominant notions of architectural expertise while highlighting the agency of paperwork―correspondence, administrative forms, and plans―as producers, rather than factual representations, of architectural form. As such, this inquiry into everyday local contexts of production offers a new perspective from which to evaluate buildings that are conventionally dismissed as derivative or lacking any critical thinking. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T00:30:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ed5e7608e2c04e38a0b55430801602bf |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2275-6639 |
| language | deu |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T00:30:13Z |
| publisher | Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art |
| record_format | Article |
| series | ABE Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-ed5e7608e2c04e38a0b55430801602bf2024-02-15T14:00:15ZdeuInstitut National d'Histoire de l'ArtABE Journal2275-66392010.4000/abe.13394Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India)Sarah MelsensInge BertelsAmit SrivastavaThis article presents case studies of two apartment projects built in the Western Indian city of Pune (formerly Poona) in the 1970s and 1980s. While their architecture is unassuming, the histories of their realisation provide a powerful account of how transformations in building policy shaped notions of professional architectural practice in India at the time. In particular, the cases illustrate how rank-and-file architects found themselves caught in the tension between, on the one hand, a socialist state eager to apply welfare measures but unable to execute them autonomously and, on the other hand, private-sector entrepreneurship looking for opportunities to satisfy increasing demands for home ownership. The article begins with an exploration of how this tension resulted in an intensification of the building bureaucracy. The second part investigates how modes of this bureaucracy, in turn, affected architectural patronage, the daily tasks expected of architects, and built architecture itself. Going beyond traditional architectural references, the study draws upon building regulation, oral history, and bureaucratic correspondence retrieved from the previously undisclosed archives of the architects. The narrative revealed by these sources challenges dominant notions of architectural expertise while highlighting the agency of paperwork―correspondence, administrative forms, and plans―as producers, rather than factual representations, of architectural form. As such, this inquiry into everyday local contexts of production offers a new perspective from which to evaluate buildings that are conventionally dismissed as derivative or lacking any critical thinking.https://journals.openedition.org/abe/13394vernacular architecturemodernismbureaucracybuilding regulationsspeculative housingurban land |
| spellingShingle | Sarah Melsens Inge Bertels Amit Srivastava Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) ABE Journal vernacular architecture modernism bureaucracy building regulations speculative housing urban land |
| title | Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) |
| title_full | Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) |
| title_fullStr | Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) |
| title_full_unstemmed | Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) |
| title_short | Intermingled Interests: Social Housing, Speculative Building, and Architectural Practice in 1970s and 1980s Pune (India) |
| title_sort | intermingled interests social housing speculative building and architectural practice in 1970s and 1980s pune india |
| topic | vernacular architecture modernism bureaucracy building regulations speculative housing urban land |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/abe/13394 |
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